Here at Spark Hire, we want to help companies utilize the power of online video to find the best candidates. We get a lot of questions from readers about best practices for using online video in the hiring process. These posts will address those questions about how to find your next superstar employee.

Question: What are some ways to use video interviewing this holiday season? -Sandra from Peoria

Thank you for your question, Sandra. The holiday season is a particularly rough time for hiring since it is usually such a busy time. Many people go on vacation with their families or take time off in order to spend quality time with their families over the holidays. On top of that, for some companies the end of the year is the busiest and most hectic time of the year. Packed calendars are the norm and it can be very difficult to find the time to interview with job seekers that are semi-available. Plus, when some of your coworkers are out of the office, it can be increasingly difficult to collaborate on a new hire.

Thankfully, video interviews can lighten the load a bit and make interview scheduling much easier. When you decide to use video interviews as part of your screening and hiring process, the dilemma of finding the right time to meet with busy candidates is eased. With video interviews, job seekers never have to leave their home to meet with you. This is especially important during the busy holiday season and during the winter when weather may prevent top candidates from making it to your office. Instead of having candidates come into the office for a series of interviews, you can instead conduct the first interviews online through video interviews on Spark Hire. Then, once you have whittled the list of qualified candidates down to a few, they can come into the office for a final, in-person interview.

By then you should have a wealth of information gathered on the candidates from your video interviews. You can learn whatever else you need to make a decision in the final meeting. This opens up scheduling and makes the hiring process during the holidays much easier. Furthermore, when you use one-way video interviews you don’t even have to worry about scheduling conflicts. Rather than trying to find ample time to speak with candidates over the phone, you can send them a one-way video interview request.

With one-way video interviews, you send candidates a series of questions you would likely ask in a phone interview. You set a deadline and the candidates have until then to record their answers to your questions with video. You won’t have to worry about finding time in your schedule or theirs to connect and screen. Once you receive their answers, you can review them when you have the time. The best part is you can complete 10 one-way video interviews in the same time it takes to complete one phone interview (30 minutes).

So if scheduling and time is a problem for you over the holidays, hire the smart way and start using video interviews in your hiring process. Happy Holidays!

Do you have a question you need answered? Spark a conversation with the Spark Hire team by submitting your question to blog(at)sparkhire.com or in the comments below.